A Complete Portfolio

April 16, 2013October 3, 2016

Geometric Lace 9

Muted tones Geometric Lace blanket on its way to California to the owner of Papers and Peonies – I am so proud to have her as a customer. What a beautiful store – if you’re in Fountain Valley, CA, stop by!

I get a lot of comments through social media outlets regarding color placement and design of my Geo Lace pieces. Here is a little about how I work through them:

Each blanket (for the most part) has one color in each corner and they blend up the sides or diagonally (I’ll talk more about blending). So first, I choose those four colors and make a sample hex of each.

I wrote this pattern to join-as-you-go, so these completed hexes will be “absorbed” into the blanket by joining other motifs around all six sides. Also, if I have no other modular/portable projects to schlepp around my town, then I’ll work a few hexes in each color and just absorb them all into the blanket. Worst case scenario, I have to pick back my last round and join. No biggie! Okay, so I have my four main colors chosen. Now what?

I play with the four colors, arranging them in a four corner configuration, until I am happy with the placement. In this blanket, I have pink and brown on one end of the blanket, and blue and yellow at the other end. Also, I have to decide which colors I want to be diagonal. I decided to have the brown “flow” diagonally into the yellow, and then have the pink and blue “spread” from their respective corners. It sounds complicated, but it’s a gut thing…

Now, I dive in my stash and get every shade of those four colors. Some may not make it in, but I like to see them all. Also, I don’t get frazzled about yarn type. I mix across brands as long as they are all easy-care, and the same weight.

When it comes to blending the colors, you have two choices. 1) Example: Blend blue and yellow by adding green shades in between them. 2) Example: Blend blue and yellow by putting some blue motifs on the yellow side and some yellow motifs on the blue side. Often I will do both.

My blanket, Geometric Lace 1 is a great example of choice 1. I used orange shades in between the yellow and red to blend them.

Geometric Lace 6 is a great example of choice 2. The whole blanket is blue and turquoise, so I had to really carry out the dark corner shades so it would blend instead of looking just like a clump of dark colors in a corner. it feels unnatural at first, but when you see the finished product, it looks great.

If I can add a couple of white hexes here and there, I do it. It’s like a painting in that it adds depth to put lights and darks in, but you have to use some amount of intuition to not forget. Also, I have been known to remove a motif later and move it, replacing it with one that I think would look better.

Have some final shots! I do adore this blanket. It was a pleasure to create as I had not yet used this palette in my Geo Lace design.